Al-Qaeda warns Saudi crown prince over 'sin'

AFP  |  Dubai 

in the has warned Saudi Arabia's reformist Crown over his "sinful projects", in a bulletin released today.

"The new era of Bin Salman replaced mosques with movie theatres," the Yemen-based group said in its Madad bulletin, picked up by the

He "substituted books that belonged to the imams... with absurdities of the atheists and secularists from the east and the west and opened the door wide for corruption and moral degradation," it said.

The Sunni group has flourished amid a complex war in Yemen, where heads a military alliance battling Shiite Huthi rebels.

In its statement, slammed April's WWE Royal Rumble event in the Saudi coastal city of Jeddah, near the Islam's most holy sites in

"(Foreign) disbelieving wrestlers exposed their privates and on most of them was the sign of the cross, in front of a mixed gathering of young Muslim men and women," it said.

"The corruptors did not stop at that, for every night musical concerts are being announced, as well as movies and circus shows," SITE quoted it as saying.

in southern is the target of a long-running drone campaign by the United States, which regards it as the most dangerous branch of the group.

Yemen's conflict has left nearly 10,000 people dead, tens of thousands wounded, and millions on the brink of famine.

The has called world's worst humanitarian crisis.

and its allies intervened in the war between Yemen's Huthi rebels and the government of now-exiled in 2015.

They have landed on a blacklist over the killing and maiming of children.

The Huthi rebels, linked to Iran, have also come under fire for neglecting to protect civilians and targeting the press and minorities.

The rebels have controlled the capital since 2014.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)

First Published: Fri, June 01 2018. 17:20 IST